Touched (49 page)

Stunned, Elikah sank back into the water.

“Kill her,” Tommy said. He crossed his legs, the black boots soft and beautiful in the light from the window.

Elikah stared at me, his swollen face now slack-jawed by his disbelief at my actions. Then his pride kicked in. “By God I will.” He started to rise again, but I cocked the gun, and he settled back into the water, aware that I knew how to use the derringer.

Propped back in his chair, Tommy sighed and gave Elikah a contemptuous look.

“I know Elikah cut Floyd.” I spoke to Tommy. “Clyde killed him, but he would have bled to death anyway. How is it, Tommy, that you never do your own dirty work? Elikah may go to prison, but your hands are clean. You put them up to it, didn’t you?” It wasn’t until he walked into the room that I understood his role.

“You stupid bastard.” Tommy grabbed Elikah’s hair with a swiftness that almost made me discharge the gun. “You told her, didn’t you? You had to brag about it. I told you all to keep your mouths shut, but you had to brag.”

Elikah jerked his head free. His grin was ugly. “She can’t do a thing. No matter what I told her, she can’t speak against me.” He smoothed his hair down with his bandaged hand. “She can’t do a thing. She’s my wife.”

I knew the truth of his words. I could not do a thing. As Elikah’s wife, my testimony against him would be worthless.

“She can’t be
forced
to testify.” Tommy was coldly furious. “She can still do it.”

“Nobody will listen to her.” Elikah’s confidence was returning. He squirmed in the water, ready to get out but not certain how to do it without looking foolish.

“It won’t matter much when you’re dead.” I could see that my words held less power. There were two of them and only me. They didn’t believe I’d shoot them.

Tommy pushed back the chair, clearing a space between him and the tub. He was going to try to jump me. At the same time, Elikah shifted his legs, getting his feet up under him. They didn’t bother to look at each other.

“Seems to me your wife hasn’t learned her place.” Tommy put both feet on the floor. “I thought you were more man than that, Mills.”

“Oh, Mattie’s tractable. Now that that McVay woman is gone, me and Mattie are going to come to an understanding.” Elikah rose in the tub. The water sloughed from his slick body, spattering into the bath. Even with his bruises and bandages, he was a handsome man. His stomach rippled with muscles, the water making his skin glisten and shine. He was partially aroused, primed by the danger and the idea of making me pay.

“You’re right, Elikah.” I spoke so softly the sound of the water dripping off him almost drowned me out. “I’m your wife.” I held the gun pointed directly at his chest. “Nobody would believe my word against yours.”

Elikah’s grin was slow, confident. “I told you, Tommy. Mattie won’t be a problem.”

“She’s holding a gun on you, you idiot. And you say she won’t be a problem?” Tommy’s voice was cruel. “We should kill her and be done with it.”

“No.” Elikah held out a hand and stopped Tommy as he started to move. “Not now. That’s the one thing that would keep McVay and his wife in town. As it is, they’re leaving. Once Doggett is dead, they’ll be gone.” Elikah licked his lips. His mind was clicking away. I always knew he was a cunning man.

Tommy relaxed in his chair. “You’d better make certain she doesn’t open her mouth. I don’t care how you do it, but I’m telling you to do it. She can make trouble for all of us.”

“Give him the gun, Mattie.” Elikah’s voice cracked like a whip. “Give him the gun, because if I have to come take it from you, Tommy will get to hold you while I beat you.” He glanced sideways. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Tommy?”

I lowered the gun and watched the smiles of victory creep across their faces. In one smooth motion, just as Jojo had taught me, I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger. Blood sprang across the white front of Tommy Ladnier’s shirt.

“Mattie! Jesus, Mattie!” Elikah leaped from the tub, almost slipping as he banged his injured hands against the side. “Jesus Christ, Mattie!” He grabbed Tommy just as he fell. The two of them, Elikah slick with soap and water, tumbled to the bedroom floor. Elikah held Tommy in his arms.

Tommy struggled to breathe. His gaze darted around the room as if he hoped to find something that would save him. There was nothing anyone could do. I’d hit his heart, and with each beat, blood pumped out of him. Elikah planted a palm over the wound, but the blood flooded between his fingers. Tommy Ladnier would be dead in a matter of seconds.

“Remember, Elikah, I’m your wife. Your testimony against me is as worthless as mine against you. Tommy Ladnier attacked me. I was defending myself.” I lowered the gun and stepped back, thinking of only one thing. I’d done exactly as John Doggett had told me. I’d aimed for the chest.

“I’m going to the jail to get Will and that high-priced lawyer from Hattiesburg. They’ll be interested to hear how Tommy Ladnier confessed to killing the Spenser family and then tried to attack you in the bathtub. When I came in to help you, he turned on me.”

Elikah held Tommy Ladnier in his arms. The blood had almost stopped. Shifting, Elikah glared up at me. “I’ll see you burn in hell first. I won’t lie to save your skinny ass.”

Elikah would lie. I would make certain of it. “You can lie or you can tell Will McVay the truth. Just remember, Elikah, Tommy Ladnier isn’t here to protect you.” I hated him with a pureness that was fire in my veins. “Once John Doggett is free, I’m going to divorce you.” He started to rise, but I lifted the gun. “I have one shot left. Jojo taught me not to flinch.” I lowered the gun to his crotch. “I intended to shoot you right there, and then finish you off after you’d had time to think about Floyd. Tommy Ladnier saved your life. You’d better take it.”

He stilled, staring at me as if he were trying to gauge whether I would shoot him or not “If you doubt what I’m capable of, look at your friend.” I waited until he dropped his gaze. “I’ll be back shortly.”

He rose suddenly. Tommy slid away from him, eyes open but unseeing. “No divorce.”

I didn’t bother to answer him.

“I’ll agree with your story, but no divorce.”

There was something in his eyes. “I’d kill you rather than stay married to you.”

Elikah shook his head slowly. “If you were going to kill me, you would have.”

His confidence was completely insane. I hadn’t killed him because only Elikah could clear John Doggett. As he rightly said, no one would take my word.

“It’s my bargain.” He spoke quickly. “We’ll say Tommy came to kill me because I knew he had killed that family. You killed him first. That way Doggett is freed. But you have to stay with me.” One corner of his mustache quivered. “As a married couple, we can’t testify against each other. It’s a draw.” His lips twitched again, and then I saw it in the corner of his eyes, the crinkling of skin. He was laughing at me.

“I’d rather burn in hell than live with you.”

“It’s the only way to get Doggett off. He could be free in an hour. The people in town will believe me if I tell them about Tommy. Sheriff Grissham will have to believe me.”

“And Floyd?”

Elikah shrugged, not bothering to hide his grin anymore. “Tommy can take the rap for that one, too, if anybody decides to prosecute.”

“I won’t stay here.”

“Oh, yes you will. That’s the bargain. You stay.” He stepped over Tommy and went to the bed to pick up the towel I’d put out for him.

“I hate you enough to kill you right on the spot.”

He toweled his hair, then began rubbing his arms and shoulders. Supremely confident. “But you won’t. Not today. You need me today. And by tomorrow, I’ll have a paper drawn up with everything in it so that if anything untoward happens to me, you’ll be accused.”

He didn’t even bother to look at me as he spoke. He’d set a better trap than I had. I could kill him, but that wouldn’t free John. Only Elikah could do that, and he had to be alive to do it. John Doggett’s life was more important than my freedom. He knew that. He didn’t even have to bluff.

“Why are you doing this? I hate you. Why do you want me to stay? You hate me as much as I hate you.”

He turned slowly and the grin was gone. In its place was a black hatred that made me step back. “That’s exactly why. You’ll pay each day. In little ways. I’ll have the pleasure of making each day a living hell for you.” His cocky grin was back in place. “That McVay bitch is ruined and out of town. She’s gone, and you’ll stay here as my wife.”

“What makes you hate me so?” The question slipped out of my mouth. “I tried to make you a good wife. I honestly tried at first. I wanted to please you, to make you happy. You hated me from the first. Why?”

“You bring out the best in me, Mattie.” He picked up the shirt I’d ironed and slipped it on. “Now help me button this up. I need to be dressed when you bring Will over here. Oh, and if you’re going to make this believable, I think you should scream and cry a little as you run to the courthouse. You’re a little too calm to be an accidental murderess.”

Forty

J
OHN Doggett stood at the train depot in Mobile. He held his ticket to New Orleans in his hand, and everything he owned was packed in a suitcase that rested beside his right leg. Not ten yards away the train puffed and hissed, ready to pull out as soon as all the passengers had loaded. John was the last.

“Is there anything you want me to tell JoHanna?” I asked him. John would not ask me to arrange an assignation or relay his need for her. It was a matter of honor. Will had stepped in to save his life. More important, it was a matter of JoHanna’s happiness.

He shook his head, and the look in his eyes told me that he was already gone from the spot where he stood. “We said it all.”

“What about Duncan?”

“Tell her not to forget to go back to the Pascagoula on the night of the Hunter’s Moon to hear my people. Tell her to grow up strong, and to dance.” He looked beyond me.

“You’ll like New Orleans, John. It’s a good place for a writer.”

He stepped toward me, taking my shoulders in his hands. “Take care, Mattie. I don’t know how you managed to get me out, but I owe you my life.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t owe me anything.”

“If you went up to Natchez to visit JoHanna and Duncan, you could ride the riverboat down to New Orleans to see me.”

“I won’t be traveling for a spell, John.”

His mouth tightened. “Why are you staying with that man, Mattie?”

How could I explain? Elikah and I were locked in a death embrace. We were tied together in a pact far more binding than vows of matrimony. “I’m doing what I feel I have to do, John. Just as you are. Just as Will is.”

John sighed and nodded. “Then he went on up to Natchez?”

“He left this morning.”

He could not bring himself to say that it was good. His love for JoHanna was as hopeless as mine for Will. I believe John suffered even more than I did because he had tasted JoHanna, what it might have been like. I had only fantasies. JoHanna’s love was boundless, inclusive. She scattered it among us like pearls. I reached up and put my hand on John’s cheek. “Take care, John.”

Behind him I saw the conductor waving a final signal. “All aboard!” he cried, waving again.

“Will you write me?” he asked.

I nodded, pleased that he had asked. If we could not have JoHanna, we could share our memories with each other. He picked up his bag and started toward the train.

“You’ll send me news of JoHanna and Duncan?”

“Every bit I hear.” I was walking fast beside him as he hurried toward the train. He walked like JoHanna. Long, determined strides. He would be okay. I had to believe that, because it gave me hope for myself.

“Oh, Mattie!” He swept me against his side with his free arm. “Remember the days we spent along the river at Fitler, and remember the river is our bond. We’ll always go back to her, each of us for our own reasons. You’ll find your freedom in that river, Mattie.” He kissed my cheek and gave me that clear look that seemed to come from another time, a place long ago. “Duncan told me so.”

I squeezed him as hard as I could. “Good-bye,” I whispered as I broke away from him and ran in the opposite direction. When I got to the end of the platform, I turned around. He was gone. With a blast and a geyser of smoke, the train began to pull away.